In a pop-music landscape dominated by the likes of Justin Timberlake and Fergie, it's becoming harder for music-industry veterans to compete. Rod Stewart, once a controversial Lothario with his threatening sexuality and ribald lyrics, has metamorphosized into a Scottish Tony Bennett, releasing his interpretation of old standards (and enjoying very respectable sales from the effort).

The self-proclaimed "Soldier of Love" Donny Osmond has now hopped aboard the cover-album bandwagon, releasing Love Songs of the '70s. The album, which hits stores today, contains 12 gems from the decade that introduced Saturday Night Live and Saturday Night Fever. From the soul of Al Green (is the act of squeaky-clean, eternally youthful Donny Osmond covering the smoldering "Let's Stay Together" a sign of the musical apocalypse?) to the saccharine wailings of Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch," and Barry Manilow's "Mandy," the album has a little something for everyone who enjoys old-fashioned songs covered in the most white bread of ways, or appreciates irony.

And for those who pinned up a Partridge poster or two, check out David Cassidy's new techo effort, which offers, according to Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), "club-rocking remixes of Partridge Family classics." I only wish I were joking.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

It's stunning: Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) has sold 100 million iPods since November 2001. A look at the stock chart for this period tells the whole story for investors.

Of course, part of the success was having good content and selling it for $0.99 a pop. But why this amount?

I had a chance to interview Rafi Mohammed, who is an expert on pricing. He runs a consulting firm, Culture of Profit, and is the author of the book The Art of Pricing.

He admits that having a fixed-price system is a bit strange. After all, some people would rather spend a couple bucks for some music – while practically nothing for other music. Why not have a dynamic pricing system?

Then again, it seems that Steve Jobs can do just about anything. In fact, Rafi considers him kind of like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). That is, if you want to make it in the music biz, you have no choice but to deal with Jobs. It's that simple.

According to Rafi: "It's interesting that analysts haven't picked up on the fact that as long as the iPod remains popular, Apple's pricing policies are going to be a thorn to the music industry. With digital music forecasted to account for 25% of all music sales by 2010 (it's 10% today), a growing percentage of the music industry's revenue will be subject to Mr. Jobs' decision on what he thinks the 'right price' should be for iPod owners and potential customers."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) are launching a new MP3 player with WiFi capacity, joining a host of rivals to Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPod, including the Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Zune.

The iPod currently has 70% of the portable music player market, and, that number appears to be holding. If the iPhone sells well, Apple will have another horse in the music download space. Cellphones that can download music are offered by the large handset manufacturers including Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), but there is little evidence that they have done any damage to the iPod's growth rate.

As much as it must pain Apple's competitors, no one has been able to throw anything in front of the company to slow the momentum of the iPod and its download service iTunes. The European Union recently announced that it would look into pricing issues involving iTunes and the record companies. That may eventually hurt Apple just as antitrust actions by the EU have slowed Microsoft's progress on the Continent.

Apple's only enemy appears to be its own success.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

As I continuously ruminate about the state of music, album sales, and the growth of online digital markets, how much consumers care about these topics is something I have not strayed too close to. I think it is safe to say that consumers do care, but I cannot say if it is to the degree with which I am fascinated and write about it.

I was reminded by a mentor and colleague a few days ago how easy the use of Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store and iPod are if you are hoping to listen to only one song or a few songs, but not an album. Of course, that very dynamic is what I so often write about in my blogs about the death of the album, but who exactly is decrying the death of the album? No matter how much I write about that death, it is very apparent that those who are worried about the death of such a money maker are the labels and the industry.

The nice thing about iTunes and other digital stores is that if you are just browsing you can listen to clips of the songs. This is not a method of shopping that you can easily acquire at stores like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) or Target (NYSE: TGT), although Best Buy is beginning to incorporate computer stations where you can make test runs of programs like Rhapsody and Napster. They hope you will then sign up for a subscription to that service through Best Buy. Browsing at stores like these only ever really entails looking at the product. If you know nothing about it, then you cannot know if it will be something you are happy to spend your money on.

Vote for the Worst enjoys being a fly around the Tyrannosaurus Rex that is "American Idol."

`"American Idol" isn't really a talent competition," said Dave Della Terza, who founded the snarky Web site in 2004, in an interview. "It's a carefully crafted realty show."

Della Terza hasn't made many friends at Fox and its corporate parent News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) or among rabid fans who regularly accuse him of trying to ruin America's most popular television show. Their angry emails on Vote for the Worst are hysterical.

Topic number one on the minds of his readers is Sanjaya Malakar. For those of you who are in a cave or in a coma, Malakar is a hapless young man who has managed to charm his way into the hearts of the American public. Every week, millions of viewers wait to find out what pop song the 17-year-old will butcher next.

In other words, Malakar is perfect for Vote for the Worst.

"It's pretty obvious that he's scared out of his mind," he said. "It's so awkward that the judges never know what to say."

Last night was no exception. Malakar put his long flowing brown hair into a mock Mohawk. His rendition of No Doubt's "Bathwater" was weird. Simon Cowell summed it up perfectly when he said that at this point it doesn't matter what the judges say about Malakar. Cowell is Sanjaya's "favorite" judge because he's "brutally honest," according to the show's Web site.

This season has had a few highlights for Della Terza. Idol contestant Chris Sligh, the chubby guy with the curly hair, gave him a shout out after finishing one of his songs. The site was also mentioned on VH1's "Best Week Ever."

"He understands the humor behind our Web site," he said of Sligh.

Maybe he'll have more time to enjoy Vote for the Worst. Sligh's rendition of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" didn't rock the house.

Try as it might, Fox can't ignore Vote for the Worst.

The site gets about one million hits a day and as many as four million hits on show nights. I had trouble getting on Vote for the Worst during last night's broadcast.

Vote for the Worst makes money, but not enough for Della Terza to make a living, he said.

Della Terza took pains to point out that he has a real job. Actually, he's got two of them.

"This is definitely not a job," he joked.